


In All But Name

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Babybones (Undertale), Bedtime Stories, Big Brother Sans (Undertale), Brother-Son Relationship, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Love, Complicated Relationships, Confusion, Explanations, Families of Choice, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Mush, Hugs, Misunderstandings, Nicknames, Nosiness, Pre-Canon, Rumors, Sans raised Papyrus, Single Parents, Surrogate Sans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:42:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28804509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: Papyrus has grown up believing that he's never had or even needed parents. When the other children explain what a dad is, however, he comes to the conclusion that Sans has been his dad all along.
Relationships: Papyrus & Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 122





	In All But Name

Sans and Papyrus, last surviving skeleton monsters of Snowdin Town, were sons of mystery.

No one was sure of where they were originally from, the exact time they snuck into Snowdin or how long they had been there before they were noticed. It was to Sans’ credit that some of the shopkeepers to this day were unaware that he had snatched their foodstuff to line his pockets. Grillby, however, was more observant than most, clearing away the trash behind his bar to uncover the sneak thief and the hungry, fussy bundle he protected with his life.

No matter how the nosy yet well-meaning townsfolk poked and prodded, they could never pry anything out of Sans about their parents. Whenever the topic came around, it seemed to trigger all of his trap doors; in the span of a soul beat, he would close off with a tense shrug and a grin.

“Dunno, it doesn’t really matter. Hey, I actually gotta get goin’, okay? Y’know. Papyrus.” That was all he would say, as if Papyrus’ existence explained nothing and everything at once. _Baffling_ , the townsfolk thought, but they wouldn’t stand between Sans and supervision of his charge for an answer.

Why not ask Papyrus then? the bold ones pointed out, only to be reminded that Papyrus had just recently grown into striped shirts. If he was an infant when they arrived in town, he would have little to no memory of his parentage unless his brother opted to inform him. Sans’ obvious caginess about it made that unlikely and it would be unfair to upset Papyrus by pointing out that something was missing from his life. It wasn’t their place to drop such a realization on him.

If there was ever a scenario where the notion of a parent was strictly _necessary_ , such as school registries or field trips, Sans handled it with the teachers behind closed doors. He was Papyrus’ guardian, a single parent in all but name—though whispered rumors of that sort weren’t unheard of either.

“Are we certain they’re brothers? If Sans is older than he looks, he could be…”

“No, no. Skeleton genes ran strong, back in the day. Papyrus would be his spitting image if it was like that.”

“What if he takes his looks after the mother?”

“Grillby said that Sans was barely out of striped shirts himself when he found them! He couldn’t have, not at that age—certainly not with a gimp soul.”

Those conversations were always smothered before either of the skeletons got close enough to overhear; no one wanted to risk offending Sans any further with the suggestion.

With all of the secrecy surrounding the subject, a short attention span and the wide-eyed obliviousness of a carefree child, Papyrus remained largely unaware. He had his brother, his teachers, the various children he (hoped to) call his friends. What more could a baby bones ask for? What more could he want?

One afternoon, after what might have been four rounds of the game Humans and Monsters, Papyrus finally felt the surrounding enthusiasm waning. He was always cast as the scary human, chasing down the other children with the goal of snatching and eating them. They had proved to be expert runners and hiders, scrambling away from him at every turn with very convincing shouts of disgust. Nevertheless, Papyrus was relentless in his attempt to play the game properly. At long last he caught up with them to find that they collapsed into the snow, worn down and breathless.

“Wowie! That was a lot of fun, right?” he burst out eagerly, undeterred when they groaned at his presence. “Oh, don’t worry! The game’s on pause; I won’t try to eat you now!” With no further ado he scooted himself into their circle and crossed his legs nicely. A couple of them glared at him. They must be sore losers of the game.

“We didn’t really wanna play Humans and Monsters, Papyrus,” a rabbit monster by the name of Hedda told him flatly. “’Least ways, not with you.”

“Oh!” How was he supposed to respond to that? “I’m sorry. But thank you for playing anyway; it was fun! We can play something else now if you want! What do you like to do? Do you like puzzles?”

“No,” Hedda huffed, ears flattening in annoyance.

“I don’t think I have time for another game. My dad’s coming to get me soon,” a boy named Chiff sighed.

“You got lots of homework?” Capra, a teacher’s daughter, guessed sympathetically.

“Nope. Dinner’s been cold two times this week ’cause Dad’s late picking me up, so Mama’s mad at him about it. She wants him to come get me a whole half hour early!”

A half hour was an _eternity_ of playtime stolen from him. Scandalized gasps of dismay went around the cluster at this dreadful news.

“That’s awful! Instead of taking you earlier, your dad should just walk you home faster. You should tell him that,” Capra advised firmly, backed up by noises of approval.

Papyrus, for his part, concurred with the others, though his brow was furrowed with curiosity. When something he didn’t know was brought up in conversation, he would often nod and smile anyway, happy to _pretend_ he was in on the secret, but the question had been on his mind for some time.

“What is a dad?” he asked. He had heard them speak of their dads before, always referring to a specific adult in their lives, but he was never certain of what singled _that one_ out as a “dad”. It was only now that he was in the right mood to ask and the others seemed in the right mood to answer him.

“Don’t be stupid!” Hedda snickered, shoving at him. “Everybody knows what a dad is! Don’t you have one?”

“Well, tell me what it is,” he urged, bouncing back upright just as hurriedly, “so I can know if I do or not! Why’s it so important to have? What is a dad?”

Hedda drew herself up confidently, as though an entire dissertation on the matter had already been prepared, only to falter as she gave it a second thought. Until now she had never needed to explain something she believed to be common knowledge. “A dad…Well, a dad’s someone older who’s in charge of you,” she announced at last, folding her arms authoritatively. “He makes up the rules.”

If that was the only condition, Papyrus had quite a number of dads! His teachers had pasted colorful “Class Rules” posters on the walls. The King made rules for the entire Underground and Sans had created plenty of annoying house rules: _finish homework before playing, clean your whole plate, don’t try to bring snowmen into the house (no, Pap, they love being out in the cold, I promise), close the door after coming inside but don’t slam it_. That had to count for something.

“That’s not _all_ a dad does,” Chiff protested before Papyrus could comment on this.

“Oh, then you tell him what it does, if you’re so smart!”

“My dad takes me all sorts of places, like I said. And he shows me how to do stuff, like reading and numbers and magic and…lots of things! And he scolds me when I get in trouble.”

Gnawing pensively on one of his knuckles, Papyrus mulled over this information. Briefly he considered the river person, who had taken him and Sans in a boat on their special outings to Waterfall, but there wasn’t much else to say about them. They didn’t fit the rest of the criteria.

Because he had never met the King, he couldn’t be sure of his opinion on getting in trouble. At school he often heard of things that the King had said or done, but did that count as Asgore _showing_ him things? Probably not, which meant that he was out of the running too.

Still, that hardly created a shortage. His teachers spent all day explaining sums and magic and Sans helped him read a picture book every evening. None of them were happy with him when he misbehaved; that he had learned the hard way, many times over. Sometimes he would walk from a teacher’s scolding with a note in his hand, right home to Sans’ reproach for making them scold him in the first place. Oftentimes it felt like they were ganging up on him.

He frowned. “Is that all they do?”

“Not just that! When you’re not being naughty, dads are really nice to you. They give extra big hugs; sometimes they’re so big, they take you right off the floor!” Capra asserted. “And they play games with you and cheer you up when you’re sad and take care of you when you’re sick or hurt. They buy you sweets and clothes and tuck you in at night and tell you that they love you very much.”

At that Papyrus perked up. The teachers played games with him and his classmates sometimes at recess and if he got scraped up they would take him to the school healer, but comfort, big hugs and tucking in? All of those things were Sans’ job.

Just a few weeks ago, when they were playing chase, Papyrus had slipped on an icy patch and smacked his head too hard. As soon as Sans reached him, he had gathered him up in a hug, patting his back and hushing him while he cried. Later that night, when the headache became truly awful, Sans perched on his bedside and pet his skull until he fell asleep. The next day, he had chocolate syrup in Papyrus’ oatmeal as a surprise treat.

“Nyeheheh! I do have a dad!” Papyrus exclaimed. “Sans is my dad!”

“Sans is your brother,” Hedda snorted. “Brothers can’t be dads.”

“Why not?” Chest puffing out in defense of his new conclusion—and Sans’ honor—Papyrus remained triumphant. “If those are all of the things only a dad does and Sans does them all, that means I’ve got a brother who’s _cool_ enough to be both! Can _your_ brothers do all that your dad does too?”

Hedda’s nose twitched. “Well—” Before she could muster an answer, an older monster calling interrupted the conversation. Chiff pushed himself upright.

“There he is,” he informed them before raising his voice. “Coming, Dad! I gotta go. Bye, Hedda. Bye, Capra. See you tomorrow, maybe.”

“I hope so!” Papyrus chirped. He was eager to play another game with him sometime, as thanks for being part of the group to offer him all of this newfound knowledge. Next time he could catch all three of them at once, he would have to ask what the difference was between a mom and a dad.

Once Chiff left, the girls rose to make their exit too. Papyrus trailed after them at a distance, hoping not to seem overeager or clingy for companionship, but he wasn’t too far to see when their parents came to fetch them. He couldn’t help but feel pleased on their behalf at the hugs and kisses they received.

It was curious, though, that Sans had never asked Papyrus to call him by the well-deserved title. Papyrus had only ever called him “brother” and Sans called him “bro” in response, too lazy to add the “ther.”

 _Oh, stars!_ Did Sans think Papyrus didn’t _want_ to call him Dad? Was he hurt about it? Papyrus had learned quickly over his short lifetime that even when Sans was hurt, he would pretend he was fine for some stupid adult reason. Was he secretly disappointed that Papyrus only thought of him as a brother all this time?

How could he not have noticed? If no one had told him the secrets of dad-ness, how was Papyrus supposed to know? With this new wisdom, he couldn’t let that stand any longer. He had to set it all right!

“Hey, Pap!” Sans hailed as he waded through the snow, his grin weary but no less genuine. “Did you have fun?”

Lighting up, Papyrus whirled around to face him and, now ready to demonstrate his new regard for Sans’ feelings, charged and flung himself at him for a hug. “Dad!”

With his arms tight around his brother’s neck and his face tucked into his shoulder, he didn’t see the way Sans’ smile froze or the startled looks Hedda and Capra’s parents cast their way. As he gingerly returned the embrace, Sans forced an uncertain laugh.

“…Bro? You ready to go home?”

“Yes! Ooh, can we have oatmeal tonight? Can we? _May_ we?”

Maybe Papyrus hadn’t realized what he said. Maybe it was a fleeting, random aberration, Sans decided, like calling a tutor “Mom” by mistake. Shouldn’t he have corrected himself already, though?

“I guess breakfast for dinner couldn’t hurt,” he answered, rolling with the changed subject. He wouldn’t comment.

“With chocolate syrup?”

“Heh, sure thing, buddy. We can’t miss _oat_ on that!”

Papyrus groaned, shoving into his side in annoyance, though he didn’t resist when Sans promptly slung an arm around his shoulders to give him another affectionate squeeze.

That would have been the end of it, Sans thought, if it hadn’t been for Papyrus’ call at dinner:

“Dad, we’re almost out of milk!”

And after dinner:

“Dad, look at the puzzle I drew in school!”

And at bedtime:

“Da-a-ad! _Dad!_ ” he appealed to Sans down the hall, following it with a small, self-satisfied giggle as if he had just done something particularly clever. “I’m ready for my story and tucking in!”

Was this…some attempt at a joke? If so, Sans wasn’t sure of the punchline. Eye sockets narrowed in bewilderment, he slowly eased into his usual perch on the edge of the bed. Snuggled into his blankets, Papyrus beamed at him in anticipation as he picked up the book.

Sans opened it, read the first two lines aloud—and then promptly gave up. With a shake of his head, he propped the book face down against his leg. “Papyrus, what’s gotten into you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been talkin’ to me weird all night. Why aren’t you just using my name?”

Judging by the expression that came over Papyrus’ face, this was clearly not the reaction he was expecting or hoping for. Confidence faltering, he scrambled upright in bed, displacing the carefully arranged blankets. “I—No, but I am! That’s what I’m supposed to call you!”

“‘Dad’? Why would you think you gotta call me that?” Fingers subtly tightening on the book, he lowered his voice. “Was someone teasing you for not having one?” That would be some well calculated cruelty.

“No, no, see, that’s just it, I _do_ have one! I do ’cause I’ve got you!” Papyrus protested. “Hedda asked me if I didn’t have a dad so I asked her, ‘What’s a dad?’ and everyone said it’s a monster who teaches you things and scolds you for trouble and makes you happy when you’re not and takes good care of you, with lots of hugs and niceness! So I said I do too have a dad and it’s my brother so I can call you both, can’t I? ’Cause I thought you might be sad about me not calling you that, ’cause that’s what you are, so I thought I ought to call you that so it’ll make you happy!”

Blinking through this slew of information—rather impressively fit into one breath—Sans reeled back slightly, stammering. “Papyrus, I…I’m _not_ your dad.”

“But you are,” he insisted. “I know you are. There are rules and everything and I checked them for you. You act just like a dad’s supposed to!”

“Okay, well—thank you, but acting like a dad isn’t the same as _being_ a dad.” Sliding the book off to the side, Sans weighed his words. “Listen, Pap. I really love you; I love you with my whole soul.”

The doubt on Papyrus’ face was swept away with delight at the familiar words. He loved this guessing game. “More than ketchup?”

“More than that.”

“More than space books?”

“More than that too.” Leaning, he scratched his free hand gently over the crown of his brother’s skull. “More than gold—”

“And your trombone? And your best jacket?”

“And my slippers, and even more than sleeping—though I love those a whole lot too. But you had a dad once and it wasn’t me.” He smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eye sockets. “He was _our_ dad, for us to share.”

Eyes round, Papyrus peeked past Sans’ outstretched hand. “But I don’t remember him.”

“I know. It was a long time ago…I don’t really remember much either, but I know _someone_ was there in our lives back then. Who else would it be?”

“Oh.” Picking at a loose thread on his blanket, Papyrus considered. “Did he love me as much as you do?”

“Heh, I’m sure he did. Who wouldn’t love a cool guy like you?”

“So where is he then? Why doesn’t he live with us? The other dads live with Hedda and Chiff and Capra!”

Sans wavered, digging his toes into Papyrus’ worn carpet. How could he explain it in a way Pap would understand when most of his own ideas were fog, faint hopes and guesswork? His next word was more of a sigh. “Well…he probably thought it would be better for us to strike out on our own. Prove how strong and independent we can be without his help.”

“Oh! We’ve done that right, haven’t we? I’m super-duper cool and you take care of me just as good as a dad could!”

He was a sorry substitute, nothing more, but Sans was already aware that putting himself down in front of Papyrus would only upset him. He wouldn’t mention it. “Yeah. So all we would have to do to make Dad proud is keep going on the way we are now. We’re…doing alright without him, aren’t we?” The last thing he wanted was to create a new sense of loss for something that was little more than a whisper.

“We’re more than alright, Sans!” Papyrus reassured him, a balm on Sans’ soul as he reached to squeeze his hand. “We’re _great!_ If he comes to visit someday, so he can know how good we’re doing, everybody in Snowdin will be able to tell him so! Wait and see!”

“We may be waiting a long time for that, Paps…years, probably.” His voice fell a shade softer. “Or forever. I dunno.”

“Well, we can still be great in the meantime! I can be patient and be happy at the same time, as long as you’re with me!”

“Heh…you really are the coolest.”

“I know! And whenever Dad comes, _if_ he comes, he’ll see that.”

“Maybe. Maybe.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was very much inspired by a story for The Hobbit fandom that I saw ages ago, where Kili mistakes his uncle Thorin for his father. I just wanted to see Papyrus experience the same thing, having known no other family but Sans his whole life ^^


End file.
